ABSTRACT
During the seventh international economic history congress in 1978 in Edinburgh (UK) two sessions were devoted to the theme 'Urbanization and Social Change'. Upon further consideration the conference theme was formulated as: functional and territorial specialization and the process of urbanization, Europe 1500 till present. In the letter of invitation the organizers gave a more precise description of their ideas. Nevertheless, most of the European nations experienced the fundamental and transforming power of industrialization, of modernising trade and agriculture, and saw the rise of services, like banking and insurance. Three concepts of urbanization have currency in the social sciences: the behavioral, the structural and the demographic. The first one refers to the way of life. The second one is economic and relates urbanization to the movement of people out of agricultural communities into other and generally larger non-agricultural communities. The third meaning refers to demographic developments.
